Posts Tagged: urbex

This is the former site of some industrial buildings at Bundamba. Bunnings has bought the entire block.
Wandering home from the train station after a night out, I put my camera through the fence to snap these nine images. They are stitched together using Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor).

This is an abandoned factory on the Sunshine Coast. Went there with urbex pals Al, Mick, David and Cameron.
A conveyor belt, presumably a sorting machine. David's brake lights randomly turn on every now and again, and they did this while I was setting up the test shot. Test shot came out quite nicely, so I lit this with my other light saber (which still has a working red LED).

This is an abandoned factory on the Sunshine Coast. Went there with urbex pals Al, Mick, David and Cameron.
This is the front building, and the only area with any noticeable graffiti. Tried to shoot this first up to catch some lightning to the left. However the rain was also hitting straight on the lens, which wasn't optimal. Came back once the rain had stopped.

This is an abandoned factory on the Sunshine Coast. Went there with urbex pals Al, Mick, David and Cameron.
This is the silo and assorted supporting parts. Lit by my lightsaber buried under a pile of rubbish. The red LED died (or maybe just disconnected) part way through this.
A challenge in this shot was the high temperature (even at midnight) causing higher than normal sensor noise.

This is a panorama of a really narrow alley and building site in Fortitude Valley.
This is stitched from 15 images, and there are some stitching errors because of the tight confines and really wide-angle shots. Hugin found about 2900 control points and I added a few hundred more manually.

This is an abandoned unit block near where we were staying. It looks quite unassuming, in an anonymous, 70s/80s square kind of fashion, until you look a bit closer and see that all of the windows and doors are boarded up, with asbestos warnings everywhere.

I saw these walls had had some holes kicked through and wanted to shine some lights through them into the room. Alan set up his big tripod with a red gel light and we hit it with the long exposures.
This is not originally what I had in mind (I wanted dust in the air and the light hitting that, but after a moment's reflection, kicking up dust in here seemed like a really bad idea).

This is a painting table that I was going to use to set off a sparkler bomb, until Alan and I both realised that we didn't have a lighter or matches. Next time!
Alan set up lights in various points around the place to light up the scene.

On the roof of this building, these seem to be ventilation / air conditioning stacks. For this shot, I controlled the cameras while Alan walked between each stack and fired off alternating green and orange flashes.
In Alan's version of this shot, he also fired off two shots to light up the front of the nearest stacks. This actually gave quite a different feel to the shot.

This is up on the roof of the block. Blue light using one of Alan's flashlights, orb with Alan's orb tool, and wavy lines with my light sabers. Five minute exposure to get some star movement, with two-odd minutes of light painting and the rest to capture the ambient light.

Spent an afternoon and evening at the abandoned TAFE. Al did a steel-wool burn in the ceramics block. I accidentally left my camera on the wrong settings and this shot was overexposed. Al did another one for my benefit, but the first one actually turned out better. In addition to the burn, there was a flash of blue light from the right of frame.

Spent an afternoon and evening at the abandoned TAFE. This is a big broken thing. I suppose it was in there in order to get repaired, but it never was. I tried to HDR this but I still haven't got the hang of HDR photography.

If ever you've wanted or needed a reason to shoot raw, here is one. I arrived late to the location and didn't check my settings before starting to shoot. I thought the shot was a write-off, but with nothing to lose, I fiddled with sliders in Lightroom and ended up with this result.

Alan Warren, AKA The Best Photographic Buddy A Guy Could Have, obtained permission to be on the property and access these abandoned buildings. I arrived (very) late, and then hung around after everyone else had gone home.
This picture is a composite of two shots. I tried a few different ideas, but my attempts to do this in one shot weren't working out. I was starting to get a bit creeped out being along in this place and I didn't have the patience to do a full five minute exposure.
The first shot of this composite was me shining the torch directly at the lens for about half a second during a 30 second exposure. When this did not capture any of the ambient scene, I took the second shot with me behind the camera, lighting the scene with the screen of my phone for a 25 second exposure. I then combined them in Photoshop (details below).

Alan Warren, AKA The Best Photographic Buddy A Guy Could Have, obtained permission to be on the property and access these abandoned buildings. A few things worked against me this time: I have broken my 18-55 lens, so no wide angle; plus Evelyn wouldn't sleep, so by the time I got there, everyone was packing up. Alan, Ollie and Sam very kindly came back in with me and Ollie did some more light painting, though without wide angle lens, I wasn't able to capture them effectively.
When the boys set off home, I stayed behind to set up some shots. This shot was of me walking down the hall, pointing the floor as I ambled along for about 45 seconds. The dark line on the left is a shadow created because I was carrying the torch in my right hand. For the last 15 seconds, I lit up the room at the end of the hall from the doorway, which also resulted in my silhouette.

Alan and Mick invited me to a drain in Brisbane's south... for light painting. Final shot for the night: Alan set up his four LED lights pointing at the grafitti. Mick set his camera for long exposure, and I sat to the right copying his steps and settings, but with a different angle and lens.

Alan and Mick invited me to a drain in Brisbane... for light painting. Oliver was there as well, and he light-painted the floor. Alan set off the flash manually on the count of three. I was further back and took a "making of" shot. Mick's shot is here.